OT: potty training help PLEASE!

[Mom to Jordan]

It sounds like he is really smart and really head strong. It also sound like it has become a battle or disipline issue. I agree to give the control back to him. I sat for a family MANY year ago that had a almost 4 year old that sound much like your son. Mom had tried it all. Finnaly she went and bought two laundry baskets and a lot of underwear. She threw out all the diapers (before pull ups) She told MAggie and it was up to her . She filled one basket with clean underwear and left the other for wet or dirty. If she messed them, she had to washe them out and put them in the other basket. At the end of the day she had to help wash them all. It took about 36 hours and she never had another accident!!!

DS was easy the positive approach of buying the "cool' underwear worked fine!

Jordans' mom

 

[taximomfor4]

I cannot believe how in the minority I seem to be here!
I do not potty train children. I wait, and they potty train themselves. They have always potty trained immediately. ONE of my kids had ONE accident the first week potty trained.

Lets see...dd#1 was 2yrs 3 mos old
dd#2 (special needs but HATED wetness!) was 2 yrs 5 mos old
ds was 3 yrs 3 mos old
dd#3 will be three in a few weeks, and is ADAMANT about NOT pottying in a toilet or a potty. Diapers only. She was supposed to start preschool in September too, but without potty training she won't be allowed. We will see if she does it or not.

This last child is making it VERY hard to stick to my old plan. But then I remember that even ds, although he was quite disinterested in potty training till after his third birthday, eventually DID have that one day when he asked to get out of diapers.

This is not to knock anyone who puts real effort, time, and work into potty training. I just don't have the time or the inclination, and decided that I haven't seen a typical (not with special needs) kid go to kindergarten in a diaper yet. So I guess I believe that you can lead a child to the potty, but you can't make them tinkle. or at least not without a few bickering moments!

 

[MrIncreadable]

With three kids, two boys one girl I found it easier to train our girl. We did have a tough time with the second boy though and I guess you can say we bribed him. We had planned on going to WDWand he was 3 1/2 at the time. He would be turning 4 a month after we returned. He loves Mickey so much we started to tell him that if he wanted to see Mickey he needed to be out of diapers. It took all of about a month and he has been dry ever since (3 years).

We never put them in pull ups. Our first had them for about a week and we could see a pattern that seemed to be hard to break. The same story, To into playing to realize he had to go Etc. We went straigh to underware. Sure there were accidents but I think it cut the training time down conciderably.

Good Luck and remember to use positive reinforcement. If you yell about having an accident he will get scared and try to hold it longer and will then have an accident.

 

[Zoesmama03]

From what I've heard its pretty common for some boys to not train until 3 and sometimes 4. My best friend has 3 boys the older two finally potty trained by 4. The youngest is only 3 weeks so of course not ready for long time.


I'm with you though. My dd will go on potty but I don't think she quite yet gets "IT" she has gone pee several times and poopoo but only by good timing.

I do the training pants but she will pee in them and keep going. Bare bottoms seems to go better for us.

I've read its best to start with a few hours of bare bottom time and increase it when they start making it several times a day put on the training pants.

My dd oddly stays dry through naps usually but at night she waks up soaked so I know we will be in pull ups or diapers at night for awhile. I guess maybe having a cut off for drinks might help some.


My thought about pee on the carpet is that you can clean it for as much as you will spend on pull ups to prevent it!!

 

[SueM in MN]

I cannot believe how in the minority I seem to be here!
I do not potty train children. I wait, and they potty train themselves. They have always potty trained immediately. ONE of my kids had ONE accident the first week potty trained.

Actually, my oldest DD trained herself.
When she was about 18 months old, she had watched me use the toilet and decided she wanted to do it herself. We had already bought a potty chise when whe was about 15 months old, just to get used to the idea of it being there. She sat on it and actually went! I thought it wass going to be so easy.
Well, apparently she just used it to prove to herself that she could or something. After that, we tried stickers and cute underwear and a special Barbie she wanted - she had to earn a certain number of stickers to get the Barbie. She earned enough to get the Barbie and then stopped using the potty. Finally, I told her that she should decide if she wanted to wear diapers or "big girl pants". Some days she chose diapers (and wet them), some days she chose underwear (and kept them dry). Then one day, she said "I decided I'm big now" and she went totally to underwear. She never had an accident after she "decided", even when a few days later we were in the mall and she declared she needed to use the bathroom in a store where it took me 15 minutes to locat the nearest bathroom.

 

[can'twait]

First, like everyone said - ditch the pull ups.

Do it when you have a week off from work. I found that my son would do it at home on the weekends but not at school as the teachers didn't have the time to sit with him, and frankly neither did I in the evenings after work.

Make it your first priority. Give him raisin bran so he doesn't get constipated and and lots of water to drink so he will have to pee. Make a "parade" to the potty once every hour and make him sit there until something comes out. Read books, play games, whatever it takes to stay there until something happens. Watch him like a hawk in between "parades" and be aware of his habits. My son was afraid to poop on the potty. He tended to do it at night after I would put the pull up on just before bed, the little stinker. Obviously he was holding it and waiting for the pull up! So one night I said, no pull up and no bed time until you go on the potty. I gave him a glass of water and sat in there with him. I could see he was holding it. Finally I said, it's OK, just let it go, and he did! We just did the same routine all week and by the end of the vacation he had it down. He walked into school the next Monday like he was the big cheese! Good luck!

 

[OntFamily]

I sympathize with you -- We have a son who turned three recently, and is close to becoming toilet trained (I don't define as trained until he can go to the washroom himself, with no assistance).


We found this book invaluable http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...102-3793979-9830521?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

It took a couple of days, but it got us to the 85-90% level in training.

 

[2buzzboys]

For my 1 DS he loved buzz lightyear so much that we went to superwalmart and he picked out buzz lightyear underwear. When we put them on I explained that he cannot get buzz wet because buzz would not like that and he might get upset with you. That worked instantly. With my second DS I used the cheerioes in the toilot and also M&M's. When he went #1 he got 1 M&M. When he went #2 he got 2. When the bag ran out he got to pick whatever treat he wanted . Within a week he was not only trained for the day but he stayed dry at night as well. They were both 2yrs & 9 mths when fully trained.

 

[Nik's Mom]

I feel your pain. Our ds turned 3 in May and is refusing to be potty trained. We'll sit him on the potty, but he just holds his pee in. As soon as we take him off, he'll pee on the floor! He did do pee in the potty one time and we started clapping until he got mad. I guess he didn't like the attention. I've tried the underwear thing, because that worked like a charm for my other ds. He was trained in 2 days. But youngest ds is having a hard time. I finally gave up. I guess he's just not ready.

 

[taximomfor4]

Actually, my oldest DD trained herself.
When she was about 18 months old, she had watched me use the toilet and decided she wanted to do it herself. We had already bought a potty chise when whe was about 15 months old, just to get used to the idea of it being there. She sat on it and actually went! I thought it wass going to be so easy.
Well, apparently she just used it to prove to herself that she could or something. After that, we tried stickers and cute underwear and a special Barbie she wanted - she had to earn a certain number of stickers to get the Barbie. She earned enough to get the Barbie and then stopped using the potty. Finally, I told her that she should decide if she wanted to wear diapers or "big girl pants". Some days she chose diapers (and wet them), some days she chose underwear (and kept them dry). Then one day, she said "I decided I'm big now" and she went totally to underwear. She never had an accident after she "decided", even when a few days later we were in the mall and she declared she needed to use the bathroom in a store where it took me 15 minutes to locat the nearest bathroom.

EXACTLY how it goes with all my kids. So they are not potty trained as early as some. It is sure REALLY easy, and accidents with underwear end up being COMPLETELY nonexistent. Thanks! I was feeling really like the odd-mom-out!

Beth

 

[bartleby1]

UPDATE: Well, I think he is finally starting to take this a bit more seriously. He still isn't telling me when he has to go, but he is holding it for 2-3 hours and waiting until I bring him to the potty. My bigger problem is the poop issue since he goes around 10 or 11:00 every morning and this is when he will be in school. I don't think they will have a problem with him wearing a pull-up as a "just in case" but they will not change him so I will be going to pick him up every time he poops.

I just ordered the book that a few of you suggested from amazon and Monday and Tuesday I have nothing planned so I'm going to try letting him run around naked again. Maybe this time it will work since he is starting to get the hang of it. Last time he didn't care and peed and pooped in my family room, yuck. I hate the thought of him doing that again, especially since my 8 month old is now crawling around the floor. Maybe we will stay out in the back yard if it is nice out.

Also, we are going out today to get him some big boy undies and making the switch. I know that many of you are right that he sees pull-ups as being "convenient" and therefore it is not that big of a deal if he goes in them. Pull-ups worked fine for my DD, but she was a "rule follower". If you told her not to do something, she just wouldn't. She still gets horrified if other kids don't follow the rules.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions. It has been very helpful.

 

[isla bonita]

I go with the idea when they are ready they will do it them selves. As long as they are not special need children. Not one of my children was under 3 before they were potty trained. No big deal for me. Once they decided it was the right time, they would even go thru the night with out wearing a pull up. I think it is great that some do it before they are 2 or 2 but don't drive yourself crazy life is to short.

 

[jodifla]

It would be nice to have the freedom to wait, but the OP feels the pressure of wanting her son to be able to start preschool.

It's a lot of pressure to put on a parent, I think. Seems to me the age to expect kids to be trained by for school is 4, not 3. I read the stat that 50 percent of boys are trained by 3, and 95 percent are trained by 4.

 

[taximomfor4]

It would be nice to have the freedom to wait, but the OP feels the pressure of wanting her son to be able to start preschool.

It's a lot of pressure to put on a parent, I think. Seems to me the age to expect kids to be trained by for school is 4, not 3. I read the stat that 50 percent of boys are trained by 3, and 95 percent are trained by 4.

I DEFINITELY understand the pressure of the timing!! My deposit was due back in February for my about-to-turn-3 yr old dd's preschool. To go, she must be 100% potty trained by September. So in this instance, I am certainly beginning to get antsy with my former policy (to wait, and let them potty train themselves). I am so VERY tempted to try to get this going, but I am still holding out hope that she will train herself like the others did. SOON!

 

[Lizzybee]

My son was exactly the same as OPs! He could pee in the potty just fine and dandy but poop was a completely different situation. We tried EVERYTHING that seemed non-abusive and it was sooo frustrating. I learned that the stubbornness and determination of a toddler boy who does NOT want to poop on the potty far exceeds that of any parent. We had made every kind of promise you could think of to get him to poop on the potty so when the momentus occassion finally occurred... he had to give him a parade around the neighborhood, get him an ice cream sundae (a BIG one) from Dairy Queen, and buy him a tiger toy. That lil stinker remembered every one of my bribes! He was 3 1/2 when he finally decided to do it and I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with his sister (didn't I just stop buying diapers?? ). She was MUCH easier to potty train (if you put a lil girl in panties in a dress and send her outside to play she will only soil herself ONCE, boys will simply water your flowers with their "hose"). A wise doctor told me "how many 5 yr olds do you see go to kindergarten in diapers?". That really helped me ease my anxiety and expectations with my son.

 

[taximomfor4]

Most of the people I know well have the same issue...pee training before stinkies training. My kids, every one of them, has been the opposite. By a mile. My niece Abbie was TERRIBLE with potty training. She was 4. And stinkers were something she was NOT going to sit on the toilet for. She would tinkle in the toilet all day long, and then mess in her pullups or undies. I felt really bad for my SIL.

BTW a common (at least not RARE) problem with recently potty trained kids is "withholding." My oldest (who potty trained herself at 2 yrs 2 mos) started doing this at about 2 1/2. It was TERRIBLE! The ped gave us suppositories that I hated to have to use. So I did so really rarely. She would fight it and fight it, even when she HAD to go. They say it is a control thing. Big age for feeling in control of their own bodies. Guess they don't always like to answer to Mother Nature!! We ended up at the ped several times for severe abdominal pain, when she got too "full." Thank goodness this ended within about 6 mos.

Funny, your doc said the same thing I posted earlier...don't see too many (typical) kids in diapers in Kindergarten. VERY true. And sad to say, I have seen some pretty neglectful parents, unfortunately. Not whose kids are DYING, but whose kids are mostly just ignored, never leave home, etc. Those kids miraculously potty trained too, by about age 4. By themselves. It is a pretty natural maturity leap. It WILL happen, just not always when WE the parents need it to. Arrggghhhhh!

 

[scouthawkk]

Our ds2.5 (will be 3 in September) is in daycare, so they really helped the process. They had him sitting every hour, just to "try". He would pee a little every time. Then it was a little less frequent, until finally a kind of fixed schedule. We have him go as soon as he gets up in the morning, as soon as we arrive at his daycare, and they take it from there. Then he goes as soon as we get home, and again at bedtime. Anything in between is bonus for us.

Didn't have much problem getting him to pee on the potty. He loves stickers, so for every pee, he got one...every poop, he'd get two. He collected tons of stickers for going pee, not so many for pooping. So I stepped it up a bit. I created what we call "toy point cards". Just a simple little card (used small pieces of paper and laminated them) that says "toy" on the top, "point" on the bottom and has the number 1 in the center. On the back of each one is a crayon drawn picture of some kind of toy. Every time he pooped on the potty, he got one card. At first he got a new toy for every two collected. After a week, we bumped it up to three for a new toy. Now he gets one card for an entire days worth of poops (sometimes only once, sometimes more) and redeems them every Saturday for a new toy. He totally got the system down real quick. And as added incentive, I took him to the dollar store and had him pick out a bunch of toys to put in the "toy bag" for him to pick from each time. (He also got to pick out most of his new underwear)

We haven't had an accident in over 3 months. We did just get rid of the last pull-up about 3 weeks ago, but that was Mom and Dad being afraid of the 45 minute drive home from work with NO bathrooms between the two...even with him going just before we leave. And to our amazement, he now will actually stop in the middle of playing or watching a movie (he will even ask us to pause the movie) to run and go potty. It did take a little while for him to believe us that he will not miss anything, and that he won't lose any play time if he actually goes, but now he runs off on his own...sometimes without us even noticing until we hear the flush!

We go to Disney in two weeks, and he is looking forward to it...I only hope I can find him some Mickey underwear...I think he will be heartbroken if we come home without any!

 

[disneyfor3]

Our son is now 4 years old and from other moms I have spoken with it seems like each child is different for what works. It can be very frustrating and I can sympathize. What worked for mine:

As far as pottying I tried at 2 and 1/2 years and he could care less. I backed off until he was almost 3 and after trying regular undies and getting tired of doing laundry I did the bare bottom approach and his potty chair followed him wherever he played. He chose to go on the potty in a short period of time. He would still have an occasional accident if we didn't get to the potty in time at the Mall or a friend's house - he still tends to be a little on the last minute side and will make a run for it, but I never made a big deal of things or ever scolded him for having an accident.

Pooping was a little harder. At 3 years and 2 months (amazing how we remember these milestones) I decided to try buying my Thomas the train obsessed son a battery operated James. I showed him this wonderful train and then placed it on the top of the refrigerator. I told him when he decided to start going poopies on the potty and did it several days in a row he would get that wonderful James the train. It was amazing how quickly this worked for us and he got that James at the end of the week and was very proud of himself. After that, it was like it was never a big deal.

I did find that my son stayed dry at night right after he started going on the potty and I kept him in Pullups at bedtime for the first couple of months, but took him out of pullups after that when they were always dry. I do have a friend with an 8 year old son who still wears pullups at bedtime. My nephew also had this problem at night until he was older and I understand it is something that depends on how soundly a child sleeps.

Good luck. Stick with it. Don't be discouraged, once they are ready, they will let you know.

 

[Sheaboys]

So here is how to start, by the way, I already trained 2 boys prior to this little man:
1. Get underwear.
2. Let him practice pulling them up and down.
3. Get a stool and let him stand at the toilet to pee.
4. Get pull ups for bed time, this will last anywhere from 1-3 months after day training is completed.

We started on a long weekend with all boys, not sure why it just worked out that way.
Day 1: He wet through 4 sets of clothes because he would not pull his pants down. Put in diaper after 4th time.
Day 2: He was in a swimsuit most of the day and would just pee through that.
Day 3: Samething with the swimsuit, however, he would annouce he was peeing.
Day 4: He finally took his diaper off and jammie bottoms, went naked just about all morning and peed outside. Thinking it has been about 3 days since he last pooped, I need to catch him getting ready, did it, got him on the toilet succeed in going.
Day 5: In underwear and pulling them down to pee. He would annouce need to pee and I would run to get him, assist if needed. However, caught him several times in the yard doing it by his own. We live in the country very secluded.
Day 6: By now I can't remember when he last pooped, thinking it had been 3 days, so I needed to catch the moment before it arrived....caught him in the playroom and missed the moment, he went in underwear... no biggie tossed them and got a new pair.

It has been 18 days since we began, had only the one pooping accident. Course he holds it longer now, about every 3 days or so, but I catch him and get him on the toilet.

He turns 3 on the 22nd of July! Good luck~

 

[AndieB]

Pooping was a little harder. At 3 years and 2 months (amazing how we remember these milestones) I decided to try buying my Thomas the train obsessed son a battery operated James. I showed him this wonderful train and then placed it on the top of the refrigerator. I told him when he decided to start going poopies on the potty and did it several days in a row he would get that wonderful James the train. It was amazing how quickly this worked for us and he got that James at the end of the week and was very proud of himself. After that, it was like it was never a big deal.

I used the Thomas engines as motivation for my son to poop in the potty, too (seems like it took forever! ), but for mine the negative motivator worked better than the positive. If he had a poop accident, one of his engines got put up in the cabinet, where he could see it but not play with it. If no accident the next day, he got it back. I felt horrible sometimes to keep taking things away from him, but that's the only thing that worked. Now he's daytime trained, but we still struggle with nights.

Is there anything you can do to help them through the nights? DS goes to the bathroom before bed every night, and doesn't get juice at night (milk with dinner). He seems to be heavy sleeper. Do we just wait it out?